The death of a child is the greatest sorrow for parents. How to cope with the death of a child? It takes a lot of time and effort to overcome your grief. To combat grief various forums and books for parents who have lost a child have been created. If you or your acquaintances need help, this article may be useful to you.
What is depression?
Depression is a clinical syndrome. Depressed mood, loss of interest and pleasure, decreased energy, and increased fatigue are considered to be the most common characteristics of depression. Other features include decreased self-esteem and self-confidence, ideas of guilt and worthlessness, a gloomy and pessimistic outlook on the future, ideas or actions of self-harm or suicide, decreased concentration and attention, sleep disturbances, and decreased appetite. With depression, the bad mood does not change much and is often unrelated to the circumstances. Mood can have characteristic diurnal fluctuations, often worsening in the early morning. In some cases, the mood can be masked by excessive physical complaints.
Differences between grief and depression
What is grief? Grief is an emotional reaction to the loss of loved ones, which usually manifests itself in sadness and crying. This is usually due to the circumstances of the loss of someone. Several theories have been put forward to explain this reaction, and they described seven stages of grief.
In the first stage, the person does not believe in the truth of the loss. The next stages include denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and, ultimately, acceptance of the truth, allowing the person to return to their normal life.
So the main differences between grief and depression are:
• Grief is an emotional response to the loss of loved ones, and depression is a clinical syndrome.
• Grief is often associated with circumstances, but depression is not.
• There are certain treatments for depression, but there is no specific treatment for grief, but counseling can be beneficial.
How to care for yourself?
The first days of dealing with the death of a child are very difficult. Psychologists give business advice: protect yourself as much as possible from the unpleasant experience. The fact is that people often feel numb as if everything around froze, and time slowed down.
The psychologist, having studied the problem, can advise you to take a vacation, return to work, do your favorite thing. This only works if a person is morally ready to do something to distract himself. Working in a period of deep grief after the death of a child can only be a burden. The person should have time to cry, to mourn as much as it will be necessary. It is temporarily necessary to refuse important affairs: sale of the real estate, big purchases, sharp changes. All actions that require caution and deliberate decisions must wait. Express your grief in creativity. Exercise yourself. Heavy loads dull emotions.
Share your pain. Be sure to find a person or people who can share your grieving the death of a child with you. If you do not find understanding among loved ones, start communicating on the Internet. There are special forums where mothers who have lost children talk about their pain, support, and help others coping with the death of a child.
Write a letter to your lost child. Put everything you want to say on a piece of paper and then burn it. Write as much as you need to relieve the pain. Go to bed on time, eat regularly. You have to do it by force. Proper nutrition and sleep will help you recover faster from grief by reducing stress hormones in the blood.
When to seek help?
If you are unable to cope with your own emotions after the death of a child, consult a psychologist. There is nothing wrong with going to a psychologist, the doctor can suggest medications that will relieve a little emotional stress, improve sleep, and general well-being.
Also, the psychologist will write out some useful recommendations picked up individually for each patient. It is not necessary to resort to the help of alcohol or drugs, also it is not necessary to appoint to itself serious drugs. These methods will not help to survive the death of a child, but will only worsen the situation.